Matty Matheson Chef and Actor

 Can a chef also be an actor as well as spokesperson?Yes, f that chef is Matty Matheson. This talented chef has done it all from being a regular and consultant on the popular TV show The Bear to creating all sorts of dishes.

Regular contributor Kim Severson interviewed this interesting creator of all sorts of recipes in yesterday;s New York Times Wednesday Food section.Che fMatheson may be known to Bear fans as Neil Fak the fix it man who can;t really fix anything.However he was first hired on the show as a consultant thanks to  his friend Courtney Sorer who is also the show's culinary producer Whil e    she taught cast members how to cook Chef Matteson  made sure the show's interiors looked authentic . The walk in freezer ha to be the real deal and , the pans looked sufficiently beaten up.He had to make both the actors and writers understand the anxiety and sweat that comes with the job. It;s not his first time in from of the cameras. You Tube fans know him as the host of  deceptively sloppy stand and stir cooking shows , looking like John Belushi with a culinary degree. He;s not confined to the small screen.He's in the latest Toy Story FIve where he plays a daredevil peanut in a luche Libra mask (It could be all those acting lessons he had on the set of The Bear.

Chef Matheson is known for his restaurants and farm too. His grandfather operated The Blue Goose a famed eatery on Prirnce Edward Island where they family has been since the 1700;s His farm which features his wife's Trish's home baked goods as well as locally sourced meats and veggies. His restaurants are diverse and many . There is Matty's Patty which features Smash and cheese burgers ,both beef and Impossible plant based.Rizzo,s named for his daughter and second child features good old fashioned  Italian American  dishes. such as meatballs and burrata along with rigatoni and gnocchi bathed in rich tomato sauces. He had a restaurant at with the person who I taught him t cook Rang Nguyen, chef at Seleect Bistro where Chef Matheson first learned to cook. That closed last year He also opened Prime Seafood Place a month before he started on "Tbe Bear" a hygge infused veggie forward steakhouse.He;s also the spokesman for Canada;s Mushroom Council where he made popcorn mushroom along with being in a KFC commercial with the Colonel.

Matty Matheson is one of Canada's best imports .He's a great actor and a great chef. What's next for this amazing chef? Anything and everything.

A Chef's Fire

 Most chefs , like the artists they are are driven. Yet for Curtis Duffy, chef of the great Chicago restaurant Ever it's more than drive , it's fireborn of hardship and determination. This is what has made hom the success that he is.

Regular contributor Kim Severson wrote about his m in today's New York Times Wednesday Food section. Some may recognize him and his restaurant from the FX series"The Bear" His restaurant servers at the set for the fictionalized Chicago restaurant run by Jeremy Allen White as mercurial chef Carmen Carmy Berzatto. He;s quick to point out that the show isn;t based on him nor is the restaurant based on Ever. Yet he and the main character have the same amount of torture and angst in their lives.It will come out in his memoir due out in August. He wrote Fireproof: memoir of a Chef  with his friend Jeremy Wagner, a novelist.It's not just an autobiography of how he learned to cook and his background. It brings on the worst day of his life when his father took his mother hostage at the supermarket where she worked. Bear, his wild father , a tattop artist shot Jan and then himself. Chef Duffy had just come home from culinary classes at Ohio State University and received a day off from his job at the local country club.After it was all over he got his father's, leather biker jacket, his tattoo equipment and a blue spiral notebook, There was a good bye  telling Curtis that he would someday  be the best chef in the world.

His father also issued a warning Dont walk in his footsteps "It is a world of pain hate, and  sure won;t be loved and won;t be ablet  show love." Instead he has channeled his feelings into martial arts dogs and running. He is scheduled to run a triathlon soon.His love of cooking did not come from his mother or father  but from his sixth grade HOme Ec teacher Ruth Snider. Thanks to her his first dish was a pizza with a frozen's biscuit crust.She also taught him to sew and he made is first backpack for his skateboard from the material she bought him because his parents had been to broke to afford it. She served as a balm when his parents died. Ms. Snider was the most important guest when he opened up his first eatery Grace. He wound up at the famed Charlie Trotter working with the great Chicago chef in 2000. he had convinced his  first wife Kim to move from Ohio. He was also influenced by Thomas Keller and Grant Atchatz ,chefs who believed in minimalist menus and kitchens.It was a militaristic kitchen brigade where everyone worked in sync to create tasting menus worth hundreds of dollars. He's looking for the next generation of chefs who have the same beliefs.

Curtus Duffy has come through the fire to produce great food. He will be an inspiration to younger chefs. His is a menus that will stand out for decades.

A Restaurant Staple Comes Home

Diamond Crystal kosher  salt has been a staple of restaurant kitchen since the 1880's Yet  home chefs have always had a hard time of getting the restauranr quality salt for their own cooking and baking. Now that's about to change.

New conrtibutor and cookbook author Marnie Hanel wrote about this much loved restaurant kitchen staple in yesterday's New York Times Food section.Kosher salt is popular.It's even seen on the trendy show "The Bear" as the main character ,a splenetic chef called Sidney instructs his chef de partie to salt T-bone steaks "like a sidewalk" with it. Ina Garten calls the salt perfect and it's been used in recipe testing in both Bon Appetit and America's Test kitchen magazines' recipes. when rumors of it being discontinued in 2010 france Lam, the editor in chief of the cookbook publisher Clarkson Potter went out and bought ten boxes. why is it so desired? Because unlike regular table salt, the crystals are hollow and lightweight, giving them a brittleness. This makes them easily crushable.This makes the salt the ideal seasoning because it dissolves quickly in food.Recipe developers favor it over its' competitor Morton's which is denser and nearly twice as salty. It could ruin a recipe if too much is added in.

However it could be a hard sell with home chefs. Many associate salt with the iconic Morton's umbrella and the lirtle girl underneath it instead of the famed crystal and star  on the box. It seems that ninety percent of home chefs prefer Mortons' kosher salt despite its' drawbacks.Diamond Crystal's parent company the one hundred and sixty year old Cargill enlisted the fairly new Enlisted Design to redesign everything about it.It's new target demogrpahic is young and trendy, the aspiring home chef with  two avatars the academic(a guy with a goatee) and the entertainer(a girl with an Afro and multiple nose piercings). The traditional granny  figure is secondary. The new box is an eye catching tomato red with sharp serifs.It comes in three sizes, three pounds twenty six ounces and one pound. The redisigned box has a description which helps buyers discern what it is. The designation kosher confuses them.Is it pertaining to religion or its' type - its' both. The salt is called flakes like Malden's sea salt. whole foods and Trader Joes' for $8.99 and whole foods has it for $10.99.

Many home chefs will use the new Diamon Crystal kosher salt. It's a good addition to recipes and enhancing foods. It's definitely worth trying.